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Oh America, where art thou?

I am pretty angry, America (OK, American government; that is)! What on earth are you doing? (oh, and hello, NSA, thanks for checking in).

Let me open with Plato (Laws):

“Where the law is subject to some other authority and has none of its own, the collapse of the state, in my view, is not far off; but if law is the master of the government and the government is its slave, then the situation is full of promise and men enjoy all the blessings that the gods shower on a state.”

Those were the days, huh? Shame…

Daddy is Cheating…

You know, I have suspected for some time. But I didn’t want to believe. Lipstick on your collar? Hey, there’s a good explanation, right? Right? But now I saw you with that other girl. And, you know, she wasn’t even the gorgeous blonde where I might have grumbled but acknowledged that she’s pretty hot (sorry for the outdated simile, ladies). But what I am looking at is greed, suspicion, police state perversion. And that is not good!

So now the scene is set, let’s go. You see, I have been a loyal friend for decades. I have been working with your companies, furthered your wealth in the process, befriended your people. I am a fan of your forefathers (Jefferson and Lincoln count amongst my biggest heroes) and I defended your values (and, believe me, the latter wasn’t always easy, what with all that Bush, gun-slinging, death-penalty stuff that is often not easy to understand to Europeans). Other than being atheist, I think I’d fit (or would have fitted) right in with you (even though I’d order smaller burgers).

NSA Dragnets

And now this! So, you have been running huge dragnets, it seems (never mind the details, I will leave those to Michael Arrington); by the looks of it even the most rose-tinted version is pretty nasty).

And you also have the audacity to say that a secret court to which I cannot appeal is sufficient legal oversight. And the President (yes, I am looking at you, Mr Nobel Peace Price-winning Obama) doesn’t even dare to crawl out of his White House to defend this (being humbled wasn’t enough, it seems; you should have acted upon it!).

And then, quite besides the scale of this alone, you find it perfectly OK to just about capture everything from everyone who doesn’t happen to hold a US passport. Never mind if she has shown to be a friend of yours or not. Earthlings of a lower class we are then. You basically declare war on everyone else (because that is really what you do, right? It is OK to spy on people even to further the US cause; given your tight language these days, I take it this includes industrial espionage; I mean you were on it for a while, no?).

So, let me break this down: for me as a European (although, as far as I understand, I might as well be a war-mongering nutcase of Klingon origin), you do not think I should be afforded any rights – and not even think of the rule of law or access to courts or any such fancy stuff? Further, even as it concerns your own people, you still think secret courts to which no one can appeal and that do not publish their opinions, that have none of the “checks and balances” that made your system famous are sufficient? Are you kidding me? Have you all – after all – inhaled and, for that matter, way too much?

Friends don’t Matter

This is to the first point: So you, America, think that no one other than you matters. Friend or foe – no difference. I find this appalling. What do you think this will get you? More friends? More visitors that hatch nasty plans for your downfall? Probably the latter. You know, I do not wish you bad. But I am not sure if I will be as motivated to go out of my way the next time. Don’t you know we live on a globe (as in global – get it?) with many people and regimes that require a certain amount of goodwill, trust and – for goodness sake – decency? What do you think? That we will just swallow shallow press releases referring to dubious “we acted within the law” statements? Whose laws? Who is overseeing those? Who is testing you? Who is checking your power? Where, oh where is due process?

You see, the American constitution is a blueprint for law students all over the world because it introduced the principle that the various powers within a state need to be checked and balanced against each other. They must not bloody collude to provide some lop-sided monster! Wake up! How can it be that not vast majorities of your lawmakers are up in arms over this? How can it be that this gentle, inclusive dream of a President (yes, we all loved you very much, Mr Obama) hides behind, I don’t know what. How can it be that he not only simply carried on but – apparently (I trust the Guardian more than your press releases, Mr President) – extended this highly doubtful grip on the world’s information? How could you have drifted away so far from the path of the righteous and right? I am horrified!

I live near Manchester. That is in the UK. We have an Abraham-Lincoln-Square there. And in the middle of it is a statue of the great man with a facsimile of the letter he wrote to the workers over here. Because they suffered when America fought for its independence. And Lincoln was grateful. Mr Obama, you failed! You don’t write thank-you-letters. You’d rather read our letters and try to extract as much information as you possibly can to further whatever cause it is you are pursuing. Shame on you!

Secret Courts, Habeas Corpus & Due Process

Now then, let’s knuckle down a bit. One of the pre-eminent rights that define the pride of the US Constitution is the right to due process. Would I first have to travel to the US, get myself arrested to be able to cry habeas corpus? If this your understanding of it, make yourself acquainted with the “effet utile” or direct effect: a law (or indeed the constitution) should be interpreted such that it gives direct effect. It is – if you need a reminder – related to your very own Implied Powers doctrine. And you are now saying that this only applies to US citizens? Oh, hang on, you do. You signed the treaty but did not ratify as you

consider[…] many of the provisions of the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties to constitute customary international law on the law of treaties (source)

What the bloody f***? Get yourself some lawyers that think straight rather than trying to exploit every friggin’ loophole, will you? You consider it customary but don’t ratify? Huh? I’ll have some fun in that court…

What would you say if your citizens in the UK, Germany, Italy, France, Spain, etc. were being denied due process? You’d be howling. How dare we? And you? Do not give a flying [you get it].

So listen: a secret court is something for oppressive regimes, for states that have nasty stuff to hide, for the folks that you are so trigger-happy to pursue. They are NOT for enlightened democracies. Change it! Now!

The dichotomy between Sharing and Transparency is NONE

You know, I happily share stuff, I really do. I know Google scans my e-mails for keywords to serve me the “right” AdWords (it fails more often than not). That’s fine. You know why? Because they told me. It’s transparent. And that (Google and all you others, are you listening?) is the word! I am a little more suspicious about the moral compass of Mr Zuckerberg, but, hey, I’m in for the right. The thing though is this: the “contrat social” (that’s French, and, no, it’s not communist) in the digital world is one of reciprocity when it comes to being transparent. Tell me what you want to do so I can decide if I will take you up on your offer. Spying and dragnets are not included in this definition! Not by one bit (get it?)!

Your behaviour – and the obscene ignorance to the present day you show whilst displaying it – does also highlight the antiquity of ancient laws (you know that your own spying law dates from 1917, right?) when it comes to digital communications. So let’s get this straight: I use the services of Google, Facebook, Skype Apple, Amazon and Microsoft and, rarely (I’m a little old, you see), YouTube (I don’t use the others – and hadn’t even heard of PalTalk before the Guardian/Washington Post revelations). And that’s perfectly fine. I know they collect data. Because, you know, we all know they’ve got to live and there’s this great big network thing going on with ads and stuff; that’s OK. Now, am I in any way related to the US? Not really, right? I mean: I have visited but never lived there. I am working with Americans in various ways (this is not a bad thing, right?). But to treat me as a subject because my domain happens to be hosted stateside (which I guess it is), because I happen to use the above services is, frankly, ludicrous. It is like establishing an exclusive jurisdiction in China for owners of iPhones. Because, you know, that is where they actually are built. And you don’t even blink? Shame on you! Is this where your great big dream descended to? Good Lord, this is sad – and, of course, scary.

What do you want me (and all us 6.5 billion non-US-Americans) to do? Stop using the “nasty 9” plus DropBox, Evernote, Twitter, Instagram and everyone else because, you know, it can only be a matter of time before you haul them in, too? That’s great. Just great! I suspect you really believe you’ll get away with it, right? And the worst thing is that you probably will. But you haven’t understood a thing.

This is not what this was set up for. A good society – and the digital one is built on this very concept – is based on concepts of trust and reciprocity. Your cold-war antics don’t fit into this. They won’t help either. Don’t you realise that stuff gets worse, not better, the more you behave like a rogue state? You won’t be winning like this! And that would be sad. Because that was one cool dream you had!

You, America, are – can I say it? – getting paranoid about way too much stuff, America, and it spoils your good looks, you know. The country where milk and honey flows, the place where the grass is greener starts looking aged and not so bright anymore. Ruthless and reckless you appear more often these days. This is not good. Because, you know, I’d like to like you again. Your recent behaviour doesn’t do you any good whatsoever. And you, Mr President, have a whole lot of work to do to win me back!

Bad day!

PS: BlackBerry did not endorse this message. As for everything (but particularly on this post), this is my very own and personal anger…

PPS: To my American friends: you know I still love you! 🙂

Microsoft & Skype

Allegedly, this morning Microsoft will announce it will buy Skype for $8.5bn. It is Microsoft’s largest investment into the digital realm so far (and a nice cash-out for the people who bailed Skype out from eBay a while ago; the valuation at the time apparently was put at $2.75bn). Besides these being big numbers (and allowing Skype not having to worry about an IPO anymore), this opens an opportunity for a new kind of animal in the communications corner of things. And here is why:

Microsoft is legendarily late to the party when it came to smartphones. Their Windows Phone 7 OS was labelled as too little too late although it received positive reviews on the merits. Then it struck a much discussed deal with Nokia, the ailing (former?) phone giant to ship its phones with WP7. So, if we add Skype, will this create the torso of a new type of communication service? Think Nokia handset + Windows Phone 7 + Skype = mobile VoIP on a large scale.

Did we forget an ingredient though? Ah, bandwidth. Hm… Skype is understandably much maligned by most carriers (with the notable exception of Three) as it shifts revenues from (high-margin) voice to (lower-margin) data. With most carriers struggling under the increased network loads higher-end smartphones consume in terms of data, a discussion started recently about contributions for such data throughput. Now, a lot of the larger carriers are multi-play animals: be it Verizon, Vodafone, France Telekom/Orange, Deutsche Telekom/T-Mobile, Telstra, etc, etc, they all provide both mobile networks as well as fixed-line broadband. It will hence be not that easy to just walk around them and “just make it so”.

Many people have talked about the ubiquity of WiFi hotspots and such like in many areas but I would humbly suggest that this is daydreaming rather than a robust basis for a truly ubiquitous device such as a mobile phone just yet (and it perhaps never will). The future would seem to lie in mobile networks rather than fixed-line anyhow (LTE and all), which means that there will need to be some sort of rapport between vendors and service providers (such as Nokia/Microsoft/Skype) and carriers, and even mighty Nokia has already lost a fight over Skype in the past (see also here). Likewise, Google had come out with lofty promises as to carrier integration and has failed miserably to deliver the goods so far (carrier billing on Android Market anyone?).

So voices that hail the arrival of a new era might well be a little premature. Now, given that Microsoft can work with Skype on the desktop side of things as well will ease the transition significantly. However, the be-all-end-all solution it is not, at least not yet. And if Microsoft and Nokia can deliver remains to be seen, too, I guess.

Back to work then…

Has Android Got Game?

According to a recent report, Android has zoomed past Apple in US smartphone OS share, taking the #2 spot with 28% behind Blackberry (36%) but now ahead of Apple iPhone OS with 21% (and, yes, I know that Apple somewhat lamely queried the accuracy of this). Be it as it is, Android is growing (and we all knew that, did we not?). According to Google’s CEO, Eric Schmidt, the company now sees 65,000 new phones being activated per day; this equates to a run rate of 23.7m for the year.

This is good news for handset manufacturers like HTC, Motorola and Samsung (all of who are shipping successful Android devices) as well as Google (which is fairly tightly embedded in the whole thing) but does it also reflect on the wider ecosystem of developers producing applications and services for the platform?

The main points that are usually mentioned are:

  • Low overall numbers: Digital Chocolate’s CEO Trip Hawkins moaned the company sold less than 5,000 units of its hit game “Tower Bloxx” on Android Market, which was indicative for the lack of uptake. If that is so overall, may remain to be seen. I beg to take into a account that Android as a platform is fairly new and the overall install base is still smaller than its competitors.
  • High price-sensitivity: according to an AdMob survey in January 2010, 12.6% of Android apps are paid vs. 20.4% on iPhone OS; the same survey revealed however that the average monthly spend was actually similar on Android ($8.36) and iPhone ($8.18) though higher on iPod Touch, which runs the iPhone OS, too ($11.39).
  • Return policy: Google allows users to return an app for a full refund within 24 hours of purchase. This is seen particularly onerous for games (a lot of which can be played start to finish inside that time frame).
  • Discovery: developers feel Google fell well short of Apple on this one. There is no possibility to discover apps from outside a mobile device (i.e. no iTunes) and Google has not really done anything in terms of marketing either (very much unlike Apple).
  • Ease of purchase: I would like to add ease of use of the buying process. Registration with Google Checkout is a far, far cry from setting up an iTunes account. This will very likely change very, very soon as Google will add carrier-billing now that it decided to move distribution of its branded Google Nexus One from D2C web-only distribution to the usual carrier model.

So what about it? Let us not forget how young Android is – even compared to the adolescent iPhone. The platform launched from an install-base of zero some 18 months ago, with the HTC G1 being the only device out there – and available through a single US carrier, T-Mobile (with a market share around 12%). Whilst I do not want to take anything away from Apple’s superior accomplishments with the iPhone, the growth of Android is not too shabby either! And with a plethora of manufacturers deploying Android-based handsets now (cf. the growth numbers above), Android is likely to be powering into the fore even more (irrespective of whether or not the above stats on it overtaking iPhone OS in the US already being true).

Price-sensitivity is not actually as bad as people think: the aforementioned AdMob survey shows nigh identical average spending patterns. Personal impressions may again be hampered with by early experiences: be reminded that, initially, there were only free apps out there. They will surely still be hanging around, but will they also for much longer?

Apple has always been extremely scrupulous on approval of applications on its platform. And whilst this may now be held against it every now and then (e.g. in the case of nipples or Pulitzer-price-winning political cartoons), it has helped it to uphold a fairly high standard of quality, which Android was lacking (initially) and which even led to “crap-filter” apps. One can however safely assume that this will change once the market size improves: Apple’s margins might be superior to everyone else in the world but that does not mean that the margins game developers can achieve with it are the same. With Android OS primed to expand at a much faster pace, the numbers will clearly speak for it, and – I would posit – that will bring more and more quality to the store, with the fads sinking fast.

Also, do not forget the big brands: they do not necessarily care for a small share of the audience only. Whilst Android was fledgling and just starting up, they may have held back but, ultimately, they are about reach, and Android is certainly bound to deliver that. I would therefore suggest that we will be seeing an influx of large brands (gaming and otherwise) onto the Android platform very soon, and this will also help user orientation as to what to go for and what not.

The discovery of apps will also be helped by the more open nature of Android. There have been a number of announcement for curated stores by carriers (e.g. Vodafone, Orange, Verizon Wireless, Sprint, etc.), and these will certainly not be allowing a free for all! Besides that, the app store model does per se pose some challenges on developers: the more successful a platform (and/or store) is, the harder it is to be discovered. One might need to look for other solutions in that respect…

The billing side of things is bound to improve, too. With carrier-billing around the corner (cf. supra), this will get easier and better. And also easier and better than it is on the iPhone: charges will simply appear on your carrier bill (smart pipe anyone?). Besides that, the business models for games are undergoing significant changes anyhow: Freemium takes centre-stage, and so it should: the model allows people to try a game out and be charged for it only when they know that a) they like it, b) what they are being charged for (e.g. that coveted sword, a couple of precious lives, or that cool background theme).

Remains the return policy. I have been raising this with Google, and it must be pointed out that similar things exist on the iPhone (they’re just “better” hidden). So besides the obvious (Google’s good intentions came back to haunt them), it is also time to think of new business models (cf. Freemium). It is not something constrained to Android: transparency requires you to deliver value. If you do, there are good and transparent means to monetize that value; and users will follow.

So, yes, there is game in Android. If you don’t believe it now, just wait for it! 😉

Android 2.0 a Motorola Exclusive???

There have been reports (referred to by this here) pondering if Motorola grabbed an “exclusive” deal with the Google-led Open Handset Alliance for Android 2.0 on its Droid (or, in Europe et al, Milestone) handset. There does not appear to being any formal confirmation of this but it was mentioned that, anecdotally, other vendors (and fellow members of the Open Handset Alliance) like HTC, LG, Kyocera and Samsung were still deploying version 1.5.

They quoted industry analyst Ross Rubin as to why Android 2.0 debuted on a Motorola device:

[…] There could be several reasons. Verizon’s subscriber strength and more direct competition with AT&T and the iPhone may have led it to push for Android 2.0 to be more competitive. Or it could be simple product development timetables. Moving forward, HTC will want to put its Sense user experience on top of Android 2.0, which requires development time. Google wants a healthy Android ecosystem and a competitive Motorola contributes to that.

The article went on to refer to the respective releases for 1.0 and 1.5 (both to HTC). However, one might argue that, for the first two releases, there was not much harm done in working more closely with HTC as they were the front-runners on deploying an Android phone, so that the concerted marketing buzz etc might have been justified. However, now that there is a large number of vendors deploying, one might query the compliance of the term “open source” with such exclusivity arrangements.

It also highlights the dominance Google has in the Open Handset Alliance which might, longer-term, lead to assertions that Google is in fact using the open source road as a cover to push what is effectively an OS largely driven by them. I am not implying that it is and a healthy ecosystem with multiple strong is important in particular for the launch of a new OS in a space so full of powerful multi-nationals but there is a fine line to walk in order to get it right.

Is Apple to break iPhone exclusivity?

There have been rumours galore about Apple’s exclusive deals for its iPhone all over the place (see e.g. here for Verizon). New reports have now surfaced that appear to confirm that Apple is looking at this option for both the US and the UK (and, if this works, presumably also for other territories):

In the UK, T-Mobile confirmed it was in talks with Apple over stocking the iPhone 3G (the 3GS remaining exclusive to O2, which also has its hands on the Palm Pre) and Orange is “believed”, to be as well.

In the US, the Verizon discussion has been around for a while. A new report now suggests that losing the exclusivity would spell doom for AT&T: the report estimates that as much as 30% of AT&T’s customer are with the carrier solely because of the iPhone exclusivity. This sounds a little high to me: after all, the iPhone penetration in the US is much lower than that (it held just under 11% market share globally in Q1/2009). Are they saying that all the other users (those with the less fancy handsets) just stay on AT&T to share into the iPhone limelight? No, I thought not…

Apple is in any event in a beautiful position at the moment: so far, most of its competitors’ “iPhone killers”(Palm Pre, Blackberry Storm and innumerable devices from Samsung, LG and Nokia) have failed to challenge its numbers and, quite literally, all of the app stores set up by competitors showed meagre results compared to the – now – 1.5 bn (!) downloads in a little over a year from the Apple App Store. The good folks from Cupertino are therefore now in a pretty good position: they proved (a couple of times now) that they shift 1m+ devices – on the opening weekend! They bring a lot of sex appeal in which the carriers, not generally known for coolness, can bask. They cracked the content dilemma and produced a thriving developer community, which made people actually use their phones for all these things that have been promised for so long (iPhones are connected, most others can connect). In short: in carriers eyes, they are – aside from the horrible fact that Apple takes a healthy cut – a really good thing for networks that see themselves locked into cut-throat pricing wars over voice and SMS (bringing in, anecdotally, up to 50% of European carrier profits over the past 5 years) and craving for a way to increase user ARPU (app revenue on the iPhone is, apparently, $27 per device). Happy days…

The Others: Where Android, Symbian & LiMo are

The title of this post is not meant in any way derogatory but with all the hype about the iPhone it is sometimes easy to forget that we are talking about a niche product that will probably remain a niche product (albeit a powerful and cool one!). In the rest of the world (feature phones aside), a few consortia are fighting for the open-source market, which is – let’s face it – a considerably larger piece than the small premium segment served by Apple.

So, where were we? There is the LiMo Foundation, which is onto establishing a mobile Linux standard. There is the Symbian Foundation and there is Android, a Linux-based OS from the Open Handset Alliance led by Google. One by one then:
LiMo Foundation

LiMo boasts a membership based comprised of the Who’s Who in mobile. Powerhouses from around the world like Vodafone, Orange,
Verizon Wireless, NTT DoCoMo, Telefonica, SFR, TIM and SK Telecom, Samsung, NEC, LG, Panasonic, Huawei, Motorola, and ZTE (and quite a few more) are all in there. LiMo has released an SDK a while ago. Now though, they decided that enough is enough and that the world should know that their OS was actually making headway. In 2009, there will be new handsets based on LiMo’s s
tandards released by Orange, Telefonica, Vodafone, NTT DoCoMo, SK Telecom and Verizon Wireless. Now, that’s a statement. Non-phone devices are in the works, they say…
There are already more than 20 LiMo phones out there (without very many people having realized it). They include such mundane devices like Motorola’s U9, ROKR EM30, ROKR Z6 and ROKR E8 as well as the RAZR2. Panasonic and NEC pboth produced a whole raft of devices for NTT DoCoMo. See here for a list of available phones.
Symbian

Symbian of course is coming from a differen
t mould: having been (co-)owned by Nokia for, like, ever, there are already over 200m devices running on its OS. After going open-source, they are working on consolidating the sister formats S60, UIQ and MOAP(S) now into one. Membership-wise, they’re not doing badly either: they target to having more than 100 members by year-end. Membership with them is only $1,500 p.a. It remains to be seen to what extent they will extend their handset footprint beyond Nokia though. Little has been heard so far…
Android

Both foundations felt compelled to state their cause, also in response to Eric Schmidt’s continued mantra that 2009 will be very, very strong for Android. The Open Handset Alliance had gone off to a well-publicized start with the T-Mobile G1. They recently announced that it had sold 1m devices (regarding which some people pointed out that Apple shipped as many iPhones on the first weekend), and are now gearing up more devices for launch (Vodafone got its hands on the HTC Magic). Samsung, LG, HTC and Sony Ericsson have all announced Android devices this year, and the first Samsung (I7500) has just been officially confirmed.
Multiple Membership
Wait a minute? Samsung? Weren’t they part of the LiMo foundation? Well, yes, and that is part of the problem: a lot of the big players have their fingers in all the pies (and why should they not?). This is favouring Apple since they are a single organization producing hardware and software. It could also be argued that it is favouring Android because Google throws so much marketing and PR behind it. However, maybe not. The big OEMs and the big carriers all work according to their own agenda. And this might very well be a very different one to Eric Schmidt’s: to an OEM, production cost, stability and versatility without impacting standardization are key. To a carrier, a lot will (also) ride on the ability to customize the handset so as to give it a distinct branded feel. Less PR from someone like Google makes it easier to them to focus on their own brand.
So: rock-solid, clean code, transparent and clear SDKs, no hidden hooks will mean that a lot of the feature phones that create the vast majority of handset sales (even if sales of the “classic” J2ME ones had been declining in 2008 when compared to smartphones) will quite possibly see a larger and larger move towards the open platforms. It makes it cheaper to produce and, with Apple having given the world the app store idea, content should flow in sooner or later. They “only” need to keep the standards, well, standard!
The iPhone is of course looming large, and it is the one device that has shown the old school of the telco world how 21-st-century marketing can impact market perception and sales. They have also all realized that this might actually be a very good thing, hence the eager discussions many are purported to be having on getting their hands on the next generation. However, last time I looked, the streets were not full of Porsche Boxsters either. Quite a few Hyundais, Fiats, Peugeots, BMWs, Volvos, well, you get it…

Why an iPhone Deal with Verizon Wireless would be Cool

Today, interesting reports surfaced (or re-surfaced?) according to which Verizon Wireless and Apple are in discussions about bringing the iPhone to the former. However, because Verizon runs on a CDMA network and Apple has only ever supported GSM, commentators reckoned that this deal might be for Verizon’s next-generation LTE network. And this is when one can start dreaming…

To recap: Verizon will be amongst the (if not The) first tier-1 network operators rolling out the next generation of wireless networks under the LTE standard (see here for more on this). Under LTE, unprecedented wireless bandwidth will be available, comparable (or exceeding) what households in Western and Far-Eastern countries have in their homes today. But then you would have it of course wherever you are (well, if the respective technology is installed).
Due to the immense speeds, a lot of people think that the first big change will be on the (computer) broadband side of things: no need for wireline access if the speeds are the same and you can actually wander around and through town and always be with your provider. Simplicity, ease of use, bliss of connected life.

When it comes to mobile handsets (previously known as phones), the iPhone is of course (and despite the heckling by its many critics) arguably the most successful multimedia device known to man (so far). To marry this with these speeds? Ah, what would await us (see here for earlier thoughts). The iPhone (if they can fix the battery life) would be perfectly suited to bring the new lush wireless life to the masses (albeit first to the more affluent ones): rich graphics, innovative inputs and the fairly unique form factor would show the opportunities off rather beautifully and could hence aid to avoid the post-3G hangover where people asked themselves why on earth they should get 3G phones: there was nothing much to do with them (other than being able to make “faster” phone calls…).
The most common uses would arguably be music and apps with the latter being even more successful than the former: it is estimated that iTunes took 6 years to record 6.8 bn downloads; the App Store did 1 bn in only 9 months (or 1.3bn p.a.), which would equal 7.8 bn in 6 years if no further growth would occur. Anyway, with 1.1 bn downloads p.a. not being too shabby either, let’s take both, so what do we get?
On the music side, it would either mean quick and high-quality downloads or, more likely (?), streamed music. The same applies to the VOD and movie segments.
On the apps side, LTE would arguably push the envelope into two directions: (1) high-end, graphically rich games, and (2) ultra-connected social games that seamlessly bridge media platforms. Now: both types had their advent on the iPhone. Speak to any number of high-end games makers, and they will tell you that their life became much easier since the iPhone was there. Look at products like EA’s Scrabble (with full Facebook integration), Playfish‘s games (coming from the other end, i.e. from Facebook to iPhone), etc and you have the foundations laid here, too. With LTE, all this becomes mass-marketable to a much higher extent. And this would be real fun!

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